Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It is published by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York, P.O. Box 20587, Tompkins Square Station, New York, NY 10009, weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

1. Haiti: More Strikes Hit Maquilas2. Honduras: Resistance Continues Despite Repression3. Dominican Republic: Medical Strike Suspended4. Trade: Labor Federations Blast NAFTA5. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Puerto RicoISSN#: 1084‑922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/

*1. Haiti: More Strikes Hit MaquilasA series of wildcat strikes that shut down an industrial park on Port-au-Prince’s northern outskirts for at least two days in early August continued into the week of Aug. 10 as thousands of Haitian workers, students and activists demonstrated for a law to increase the country’s minimum wage from 70 gourdes ($1.74) a day to 200 gourdes ($4.97). President René Préval has blocked the 200 gourde increase, arguing it would hurt the country’s maquiladora sector--the tax-exempt plants that assemble products chiefly for export—and cause the loss of thousands of jobs [see Update #1000].

Early on the morning of Aug. 10 assembly plant workers at the industrial park managed by the National Industrial Parks Company (Sonapi) near the Port-au-Prince airport started their fourth major demonstration since Aug. 3. In an apparent effort to defuse the protest, a security agent arrested two activists--Patrick Joseph, a member of a community organization in Duvivier, near the capital’s Cité Soleil neighborhood, and Guerchang Bastia, a third-year sociology student at the State University of Haiti (UEH). UEH students and grassroots activists have been holding militant demonstrations in favor of the 200 gourde minimum wage since June; Joseph, reached by cell phone after his arrest, told the Haiti Press Network internet service that he and Bastia were targeted because they were the most active at the demonstration in the Sonapi complex.

The police took Bastia and Joseph to the Delmas 33 police station in northeast Port-au-Prince. Thousands of assembly workers responded to the arrests by marching out of the industrial park to Delmas 33, creating a traffic jam and hurling rocks at the police station. Police dispersed the crowd by firing tear gas and shooting in the air. Protesters then gathered in groups along the road, blocking it with garbage cans and throwing rocks at some cars. A vehicle operated by the police riot squad was damaged, along with a car carrying the US embassy’s chargé d’affaires, Thomas Tighe. A spokesperson for the embassy said Tighe’s presence was coincidental and he was not a target of the protesters. The crowd also threw rocks at vehicles of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a force of more than 8,000 soldiers and police agents that has occupied the country since 2004.

Protesters took to the streets again on Aug. 11, marching from the industrial park to the National Palace in the center of Port-au-Prince and then to Christophe Avenue. The police reportedly dispersed this demonstration with tear gas and arrested five protesters, although witnesses said the marchers themselves had stopped two people who tried to throw stones at the police. Local media reported that the Aug. 11 demonstration was smaller than the previous protests, with just hundreds of people. However, the Port-au-Prince assembly sector continued to be closed down on Aug. 11 and 12--this time by factory owners, who said they would use the two days to make security arrangements. (Radio Métropole 8/11/09; HPN 8/11/09; AlterPresse 8/11/09)

Management said the Sonapi industrial park resumed normal operations on Aug. 13, but reporters waiting outside the complex couldn’t determine how many workers were present; there were reports that many workers left at the beginning of the afternoon because the bosses decided to close early. There were armed police agents and at least three riot police vehicles just outside the complex. A heavy police presence at the industrial park on Aug. 17 apparently stopped an effort to start a new demonstration at the beginning of the next workweek. (AlterPresse 8/13/09, 8/17/09)

Bastia and Joseph were finally released from custody on Aug. 18, although three activists arrested on Aug. 12--Edouard Edwidge, Alfred Valsaint and Hérode César—were still being held. Also on Aug. 18, the Chamber of Deputies of Haiti’s Parliament voted 38-36 by secret ballot, with three abstentions, to raise the minimum wage to 125 gourdes, which apparently would be increased later to 150 gourdes ($3.73), far below the 200 gourdes demanded by the protesters. The legislation still requires approval by the Senate and President Préval. (AlterPresse 8/18/09, __; InterPress Service 8/19/09)

Although the minimum wage protests have received little attention outside Haiti, there were at least two small demonstrations in the US on Aug. 19 in support of the 200 gourde minimum. A number of Haitians and Haitian Americans rallied outside the Haitian consulate in Miami, and more than a dozen Haitian Americans and other labor and fair trade activists picketed the consulate in New York City. (HPN 8/20/09; Grassroots Haiti Solidarity Committee announcement 8/10/09; NYC eyewitness report 8/19/09)

*2. Honduras: Resistance Continues Despite RepressionOn Aug. 22 a delegation from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish), an agency of the Organization of American States (OAS), issued what it called “preliminary observations” on the human rights situation in Honduras since a June 28 coup removed president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales from office [see Update #995]. The delegation, headed by Luz Patricia Mejía Guerrero, said that from its visit it had “confirmed the existence of a pattern of disproportionate use of public force, arbitrary detentions, and the control of information aimed at limiting political participation by a sector of the citizenry.”

Supporting the findings of Honduran human rights monitors, the CIDH delegation cited testimony about the killings of at least four people and injuries to dozens of others; sexual violations of women during the repression of demonstrations, including the rape of a woman by four police agents in San Pedro Sula; the arbitrary detention of 3,500-4,000 people during demonstrations; and harassment of the media. Carlos López Contreras, foreign minister in the de facto government established by the coup, dismissed the report as “a form of pressure by the OAS on the government of Honduras so that it will accept a proposal for mediation” presented by Costa Rican president Oscar Arias. The report was released just two days before the scheduled Aug. 24 arrival of an OAS delegation including seven foreign ministers for talks with the de facto government. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/23/09 from AFP, Notimex, PL; CIDH press release 8/21/09; AFP 8/23/09)

The people behind the coup are now calling for repression because they are desperate, Juan Barahona, head of the leftist Unitary Federation of Honduran Workers (FUTH), said at a demonstration in Tegucigalpa on Aug. 19. The 54 days of grassroots resistance had broken the morale of the coup's supporters, he told the protesters, who chanted: “Forward, forward, the struggle is constant.” However, the labor movement has backed away from an open-ended strike the main union confederations started on Aug. 6 to demand President Zelaya’s restoration to office [see Update #1000]. The teachers union, one of the most militant, sent its members back to the classroom for three days starting on Aug. 17. The teachers were to resume their strike Aug. 20-21, when other unions planned a two-day general strike. Unions were also planning strikes to coincide with the Aug. 24 visit of the delegation of OAS foreign ministers.

*3. Dominican Republic: Medical Strike SuspendedOn Aug. 13 leaders of the Dominican Medical Guild (CMD) and the National Union of Nursing Services (UNASED) announced the suspension of a strike they started on July 29 over salaries [see Update #1000]. The unionists said the suspension was based on what they considered an agreement that Public Health Secretary Bautista Rojas Gómez would drop his efforts to remove seven health professionals—including Rufino Senén Caba Plasencia, president of the CMD’s National District (Santo Domingo) branch—for alleged involvement in a violent incident during the strike. The job action was the latest development in an 18-month struggle around a demand for a monthly minimum wage of 58,400 pesos ($1,624) for medical professionals.

CMD president Waldo Ariel Suero said the unions were proceeding with a discussion with the government because of their confidence in Catholic educator Monsignor Agripino Núñez Collado, who was named the coordinator of the dialogue. But the first talks, on Aug. 13, ended after four hours with no accord, as Secretart Rojas Gómez refused to back away from his intention to remove five doctors and two nurses accused of assaulting the director of the Francisco Moscoso Puello Hospital. (La Raza (Chicago) 8/13/09 from El Diario-La Prensa (New York) ; La Nacion Dominicana 8/13/09)

*4. Trade: Labor Federations Blast NAFTAThe heads of three major Canadian, Mexican and US labor federations responded to the Aug. 10 “Tres Amigos” summit--a meeting of Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and US president Barack Obama in Mexico City--with a joint statement criticizing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a 15-year-old agreement on trade between the three countries. The statement was signed by Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) president Kenneth Georgetti; Francisco Hernández Juárez, president of the National Workers Union (UNT), Mexico’s second-largest union federation; and John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, the largest US labor federation.

“NAFTA did not create more net trade-related jobs,” the statement said, “and those that it did were very often less stable, with lower wages and fewer benefits. Instead, increased trade largely benefited the corporate elite in all three countries. Income inequality has also grown in the region.” The union leaders noted that the “failure of the North American economies post-NAFTA to create the decent jobs necessary to absorb displaced workers and new entrants has forced many into a desperate search to find employment elsewhere.” Employers in Canada and the US have used their “access to a large and poorly regulated workforce of undocumented and temporary migrant workers” from Mexico to “undermine…all workers by failing to afford the basic labor rights and protections to everyone.”

ISSN#: 1084‑922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/

*1. Honduras: Unions Start Open-Ended StrikeOn Aug. 6 the three main Honduran labor federations held a march in Tegucigalpa marking the start of an open-ended general strike against the de facto government formed when a June 28 coup removed president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales from office [see Update #995]. The strike was timed to coincide with eight coordinated marches by grassroots organizations that began on Aug. 5 with the goal of bringing tens of thousands of coup opponents from around the country to Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, the second largest city, on Aug. 11. A delegation from the Organization of American States (OAS) is scheduled to visit Honduras that day for discussions with de facto officials and others.

The three union groups—the Unitary Confederation of Honduran Workers (CUTH), the General Workers Central (CGT) and the Confederation of Honduran Workers (CTH)--issued a joint communiqué on Aug. 6 with the strike’s four demands: “the reestablishment of the democratic institutional order,” Zelaya’s return to office, the formation of a Constituent National Assembly to write a new Constitution, and an “end to the repression against the Honduran people.” The strikers also demanded that “all the governments of the world, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, and USAID [the US Agency for International Development] withdraw all official support and freeze loans and projects for this coup government.” The unions specifically called on the US government to “cancel the bank accounts and visas of all those persons involved in the coup, to freeze planned aid, and to withdraw diplomatic representation.”

The unions ended the Aug. 6 march with a rally outside the US embassy. “Forty days after the coup d’état, no one’s surrendering here,” chanted the crowd, estimated at 2,000 by the Spanish wire service EFE and at 10,000 by the Brazilian activist news service Adital.

The march included the 19 members of a solidarity delegation visiting Honduras from Aug. 5 to Aug. 8. The delegation, with unionists from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Spain, was organized by international labor federations and the Union Confederation of Workers of the Americas (CSA), a year-old Brazil-based organization that says it has 65 national affiliates in 29 countries, representing more than 50 million workers in the hemisphere.

A number of US unions have also expressed solidarity with the Honduran labor movement. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), UNITE HERE, the United Steelworkers (USW) and the two electrical workers unions sent a joint letter on Aug. 5 urging US Congress members to support House Resolution 630, which calls on the administration of US president Barack Obama to maintain pressure on the coup leaders.

As of Aug. 7 the de facto government was dismissing the general strike as only partial. In fact, teachers, healthcare workers, employees of the National Electrical Energy Enterprise and two unions of university students were on all on strike. Strike supporters said few businesses were open and schools were closed around the country. In Francisco Morazán department, which includes Tegucigalpa, the de facto government itself suspended classes, claiming fears that a swine flu epidemic would spread—although the Health Ministry didn’t consider the epidemic serious enough to suspend an upcoming soccer match. Soldiers guarded some hospitals in the capital to keep striking medical workers from occupying them. The Mexican daily La Jornada reported that restaurants were empty in Tegucigalpa in the evenings, even though the authorities ended a curfew they maintained for much of the previous month. All four of the country’s airports were closed, because 95 technicians had joined the strike.

*2. Haiti: Maquila Workers March for Wage HikeThe Chamber of Deputies of Haiti’s Parliament voted 55-6 late on the evening of Aug. 4 to increase the country’s minimum wage from 70 gourdes ($1.74) a day to 150 gourdes ($3.73). Three deputies abstained, and about 20 walked out before the vote, apparently protesting what they considered irregularities in the secret balloting.

Parliament passed an increase to 200 gourdes ($4.97) on May 5, but President René Préval refused to promulgate the new law, which affects about 250,000 workers out of a population of some 9 million. University students held militant demonstrations in the streets of Port-au-Prince through much of June to demand that the president act on the law. Préval claimed an increase to 200 gourdes would hurt the tax-exempt plants that assemble products chiefly for export—known in Spanish-speaking countries as maquiladoras--and would lead to the loss of thousands of industrial jobs [see Update #996].

The hike to 200 gourdes seems to have strong support among the assembly workers themselves. The factory complex managed by the National Industrial Parks Corporation (Sonapi) on Port-au-Prince’s northern outskirts was shut down on Aug. 4 and Aug. 5 in an unprecedented wildcat strike as workers marched from the plants to demonstrate for the 200 gourde minimum.

According to Sonapi director general Jean Kesner Delmas, “outsiders” began distributing leaflets in the industrial park the afternoon of Aug. 3 calling on workers to walk out the next day, when Parliament was expected to vote on the measure. Thousands of workers gathered at the industrial park early on Aug. 4 and then left for a march to the Parliament building, which was guarded by a large number of police agents. According to the Associated Press wire service, there were about 2,000 protesters and police agents fired tear gas to disperse them. AP also reported that some protesters threw rocks at the agents and ripped down flags of United Nations member countries near the building; the nearly 9,000 soldiers and police of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) have frequently been used to put down protests since the mission was deployed in June 2004.

The Aug 4 demonstration ended before the Chamber of Deputies session started, but thousands of workers came back on Aug. 5 for a new protest after they learned that legislators had voted for a smaller increase. Sonapi factory owners decided to close their plants that day for “planning,” they said, but they insisted normal production would resume on Aug. 6. (AP 8/4/09; AlterPresse (Haiti) 8/5/09, 8/6/09; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 8/5/09)

Violence broke out between protesters and Nepalese soldiers from the MINUSTAH force on Aug. 5 in Lascahobas, in the Plateau Central department near the Dominican border. Residents protesting a two-month electrical outage had erected some 13 barricades from branches, tree trunks, rock and junked cars, according to MINUSTAH, and threw rocks at the soldiers when they tried to remove the barriers. Residents said the soldiers fired into the crowd, wounding several and killing a man and a little girl. Port-au-Prince’s Radio Métropole reported that National Police officer Senat Emmanuel said seven people were wounded and two of them had died. Other officials denied that there were any deaths. MINUSTAH spokesperson Lt. Col. Fernando Pereira said people inside the crowd had fired on the soldiers, who responded by firing in the air. (AP 8/6/09; AlterPresse 8/6/09; Radio Métropole 8/7/09)

*3. Dominican Republic: Medical Workers Extend StrikeLeaders of the Dominican Medical Guild (CMD) and the National Union of Nursing Services (UNASED) announced on Aug. 7 that Dominican medical workers would continue a strike they started on July 29 for at least another five days, until 6 am on Aug. 13.

The strike is the latest development in an 18-month struggle around a demand for a monthly minimum wage of 58,400 pesos ($1,624) for medical professionals. The CMD, which represents doctors, began the fight in February 2008 and were joined by the nurses. The two unions have organized a series of general strikes, hunger strikes, picket lines and building occupations [see Update #986]. The current strike began after a surprise sit-in at the Labor Secretariat by 30 union leaders and members; police agents arrested them in the early morning of July 29.

On Aug. 6 Public Health Secretary Bautista Rojas Gómez announced that he had reinforced the public health system by placing soldiers and police agents in hospitals and by contracting hundreds of medical professionals to substitute for the strikers. “From now on, we’re going to take drastic measures,” he said. Rojas suggested that the strike was a political move by the opposition Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD). CMD president Waldo Ariel Suero said on Aug. 7 that this was just an attempt to divide the strikes and that it showed “Rojas’ state of desperation.” UNASED representative Rafaela Figuereo said the solution was “in the hands of the government.” (La Raza (Chicago) 8/7/09 from El Diario-La Prensa (New York) ; La Opinión (Los Angeles) 8/9/09 from ED-LP; Listin Diario (Dominican Republic 8/8/09)

*4. Cuba: US Activists Defy EmbargoTwo groups that regularly protest the US ban on most travel to Cuba by making unauthorized trips to the island returned to the US without incident on Aug. 3 after their latest visits, the first since US president Barack Obama took office. About 140 members of the Venceremos Brigade walked from Canada into the US at Buffalo wearing orange T-shirts and chanting for an end to US sanctions, while some 130 members of the US/Cuba Friendshipment Caravan returned to the US at the Hidalgo International Bridge from Reynosa, Mexico. US Customs and Border Protection agents gave the travelers no trouble even though they said they had been in Cuba.

The Venceremos Brigade has been organizing trips to Cuba since 1969, while the New York-based Pastors for Peace organization has sponsored a total of 20 caravans carrying material aid for Cuba. This year’s Friendshipment collected 115 tons of humanitarian aid and drove it to a port in Mexico for shipment to Cuba by sea; the caravan members then flew to Cuba for a nine-day visit. Both groups are pushing for President Obama to lift sanctions the US started imposing on Cuba shortly after the 1959 Cuban Revolution. "We are really determined to be ambassadors to the new administration for a new policy," Pastors for Peace associate director Ellen Bernstein told the Associated Press. (Associated Press 8/4/09; Pastors for Peace press release 8/2/09)

About the Update

ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It was published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York from 1990 to 2015. It continues to carry occasional postings. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com.
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